Optical appearance of Schwarzschild black holes with optically thin and thick accretion disks at various inclination angles

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Chen, Jiawei, Yang, Jinsong
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866914243373170688
author Chen, Jiawei
Yang, Jinsong
author_facet Chen, Jiawei
Yang, Jinsong
contents In this paper, we systematically investigate the optical appearance of a Schwarzschild black hole illuminated by three geometrically thin accretion disk models under varying observational inclination angles. Based on the geometric relationship between the black hole and observer, we first divide the accretion disk into co-side and counter-side semi-disks. We then analyze light ray trajectories, and calculate the total number of orbits and transfer functions for both semi-disks. The results reveal distinct inclination-dependence of lensed regions on different semi-disks: as inclination increases, the lensed region contracts for the counter-side semi-disk while expanding for the co-side one. Furthermore, through explicit specification of the emission profiles of the three models, we present optical images for both optically thin and thick disk scenarios at different inclinations. The results demonstrate that: (i) the bright rings in all three models become progressively compressed and deviate from circularity as inclination increases; (ii) for thick disks, partial rings are obscured and the overall intensity is lower than thin disks. These results may advance our understanding of general black hole imaging processes and provide a new approach to test gravitational theories through optical morphology studies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_22891
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optical appearance of Schwarzschild black holes with optically thin and thick accretion disks at various inclination angles
Chen, Jiawei
Yang, Jinsong
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
In this paper, we systematically investigate the optical appearance of a Schwarzschild black hole illuminated by three geometrically thin accretion disk models under varying observational inclination angles. Based on the geometric relationship between the black hole and observer, we first divide the accretion disk into co-side and counter-side semi-disks. We then analyze light ray trajectories, and calculate the total number of orbits and transfer functions for both semi-disks. The results reveal distinct inclination-dependence of lensed regions on different semi-disks: as inclination increases, the lensed region contracts for the counter-side semi-disk while expanding for the co-side one. Furthermore, through explicit specification of the emission profiles of the three models, we present optical images for both optically thin and thick disk scenarios at different inclinations. The results demonstrate that: (i) the bright rings in all three models become progressively compressed and deviate from circularity as inclination increases; (ii) for thick disks, partial rings are obscured and the overall intensity is lower than thin disks. These results may advance our understanding of general black hole imaging processes and provide a new approach to test gravitational theories through optical morphology studies.
title Optical appearance of Schwarzschild black holes with optically thin and thick accretion disks at various inclination angles
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22891